Aztec Immortal - Chapter 275
Chapter 267 Black Stone Myth, Indigenous Coking!
“This is… high-quality bituminous coal?!”
Shulot looked at the pitch-like black stone in his hand, and then at the thick smoke burning from the black stone not far away, and shouted in surprise.
A gust of wind blew past, thick smoke and exclamations dispersed in the wind. The long wind brings the unique sulfur smell of the mining area, and also blows away the coal dust in the hands of the king.
The king watched in a daze. They seem to be the first seeds, containing a glimmer of life in the germination of industry.
“Berthard, you have done a great job!. Where did you find this?”
“The kitchen in the back camp. The miners dug out this kind of black stone from the ground and used it to make a fire for cooking. It seems that it has taken a long time.”
Bertard smiled. He knew His Highness very well, and he knew that His Highness would definitely be interested in these rare objects.
“Ezpan, have you seen this?”
Shulot looked at Ezpan, who was a miner. Ezpan stared at the black stone in the king’s hand, and replied in a low voice with some fear.
“Your Highness, this is the demon blood that coexists with the Stone of the Dead. It is said that the great descendants of the gods in mythology killed and suppressed many underground demons. These demons came from the dark abyss, and after death, the blood and body condensed into black The stone. The mine has secretly used black stone as fuel for more than ten years, at least since I was a miner for the first time. This thing is very resistant to burning and has a large firepower, which can save a lot of effort in chopping wood .”
“How many black stones are there?”
“It’s not too little, it’s not enough. There are two places near the main mine, and some can be mined underground.”
“Since this kind of black stone is not rare, why have I never seen it in the capital?”
Hearing this, Xiulot was a little excited, but also a little puzzled. In this era, logging is an extremely time-consuming and laborious work. After the wood is cut, it has to wait until it is dry before burning, and the calorific value is not high. In contrast, coal is easy to mine and resistant to burning, and its advantages over wood are obvious.
“Your Highness, it’s because it’s unclean demon blood!”
Ezpan was surprised by the king’s indifference.
“There used to be miners who brought the black stone and reported it to the priests of Tarasco, hoping to get a reward. The priests were very angry, thinking that it contained evil and was extremely unclean. The priests said that since the flame of the stone of the dead can communicate In the world of the dead, the burning of the demon’s blood will naturally communicate to the demon, which is an extremely dangerous evil and cannot be allowed to be touched by civilians.”
Shulot was startled, this deduction is also in line with theology. he asked curiously.
“Then what?”
“Then…then the miner was executed. The priests also sent people to the mine area to identify the evil, and many older miners who had used the black stone were also executed. Fortunately, I had just arrived at the mine not long ago, and the mine had to leave people behind. To maintain mining, this escaped a catastrophe. Since then, no one dared to mention this matter outside.”
“It’s just that the work in the mine is really hard, too much work can’t be done. Burning black stone can save a lot of manpower and make the output of the mine meet the requirements. The Tarasco warriors in management turned a blind eye Turn a blind eye and let the lowly miners use the unclean black stone. They will never touch it themselves.”
“.It turned out that the advanced production method that challenged the theocracy was suppressed, but it was secretly preserved because of the advanced nature of production.”
After listening, Xiulot shook his head, quite emotional. This incident cannot be attributed solely to the conservative ignorance of the age of mythology. As a senior priest, he can better understand the logic of Tarasco’s priests.
The divine power of priests does not come from force, but from the awe of the hearts of the people. The priests of Tarasco burned the stone of the dead to communicate with the dead and intimidate the people, which became one of the important sources of their divine authority. This kind of majesty will not allow ordinary civilians to provoke, and burning “wonderful objects” can only be the prerogative of priests. The blood of demons and the stone of the dead are closely related in mythology, so it must not be discovered by lowly miners first, and civilians will not be allowed to use it at will!
“The divine right serves the priests. The root of this kind of encounter lies in the identity of the discoverer! If a senior priest discovered the coal, as long as it is said differently, the outcome of the matter will be very different.”
Shulot pondered in his heart. With the deepening of the governance of the country, he can more and more feel that the struggle of power status and the suppression of traditional authority are ubiquitous in the operation of the kingdom. How to constantly balance tradition and innovation, while maintaining the stability of the kingdom, and give new forces room to grow, will become his lifelong exploration and thinking!
The discovery of coal disrupted the original plan. Xiulot postponed the follow-up inspection of the farm, and focused on investigating “industrial food” and thinking about the use of coal.
The king’s banner of the black wolf was stationed in the mine, and the envoy dispatched to support was sent back to the capital, and the new king’s order was also promulgated. Under the guidance of senior miners, dozens of warrior groups explored in all directions. They have to collect all the special rocks, and they also carry samples of the Black Stone to find “the place where the demons are suppressed.”
At the main copper mine in the mountains, miners continue to dig. The king didn’t interfere much with the operation of the mine, and he didn’t care about the simple accommodation conditions. He just collected all the coal in the mining area under the uneasy eyes of the miners, and then began to try the local method of coking that he remembered.
On the plateau of northern Shanxi in later generations, local coking was once very common. Xiu Luote had traveled there before, saw the real thing, and heard the coking story told by the tour guide. Generally speaking, the local coking method is very similar to the local method of burning charcoal. It is to ignite coal for calcination under the condition that the furnace is not completely isolated from the air, so as to achieve dry distillation carbonization at high temperature. The clay brick kiln design can be adopted for the coking kiln by the local method, but the shape is slightly modified.
Xiuluote gathered more than a dozen senior miners and spent three to five days to build a 2-meter-high floor furnace brick kiln.
The brick kiln is buried under the soil for more than one meter. The upper end is like an upside-down pot, and the diameter of the bottom is about 3-4 meters. Overall, it looks like a yurt. There is an ignition hole in the side wall of the kiln and a fire guide. The top of the kiln is covered firmly with mud, and besides the flue, ventilation holes are chiseled.
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While the kiln was being built, another group of miners crushed the coal and carefully passed it through a sieve to remove impurities from the coal. When the two sides are ready, the kiln is filled with crushed coal and the coal is piled tightly. The next step is to ignite the coking coal from the ignition hole to start coking in the furnace.
Soon, the coal gradually heated up and burned, and the billowing hot air carried thick smoke from the flue at the top. The flue gas is very dense, not only full of choking exhaust gas produced by coal combustion, but also carrying a large amount of unpleasant coal cracking products.
Xiulot took a few steps back, away from the range of heat waves and smoke. He sniffed lightly, and vaguely smelled a familiar pungent smell.
“Huh? Does it smell like ammonia?”
The king’s thoughts flew away for a moment. A long-standing noun appeared in his mind, and he sighed softly again.
“Coal Chemical Industry”
The burning of coal lasted for a full ten days, and the smoke gradually faded away. This proves that the coal in the kiln has almost been calcined, and the remaining coke has hardened and coked, forming porous coke.
Only then did Xiulot arrange manpower to pour water on the hot kiln to extinguish it. It wasn’t until the kiln was almost cold that Ezpan did it himself, opened the sealed furnace mouth, and took out the epoch-making metallurgical fuel, coke!
“Your Highness, this is the fetish you got after the sacrifice! Thanks to the blessing of the Lord God, purify the blood of the demon!”
Ezpan’s expression flickered, and he shouted the slogan of the gods. The surrounding miners all looked in awe and bowed in unison.
“The Lord God is omnipotent, far beyond what ordinary gods can compare. His radiance shines on the earth and washes away the impurity in the black stone. As long as you pray to the Lord God, the common people can use the black stone without worrying about falling! And when After the black stone is calcined, it will become a real god, containing the power to change the world!”
Shulot was wearing a complicated sacrificial attire, and chanted loudly with a simple accent in front of all the warriors and miners. He wants to use his unquestionable authority to redefine the mythical status of Black Stone.
During the chanting of the priest king, everyone fell to the ground together, facing the kiln after coking, and prayed loudly to this strange “altar”.
“Praise the Lord God! He is omnipotent, and with a warm flame, he bestowed upon us fetishes!”
After the solemn prayer, Shulot waved his hands and let the warriors and miners resume work. Then, the king suppressed the excitement in his heart, took a piece of coke in his hand, and looked at it carefully.
The coke in his hand was in the shape of irregular lumps, with pores of various sizes in the middle, and the color was silver-gray. He held it a little, and he could feel the unique hard texture of coke, which was completely different from loose coal.
In this era, coking technology was only in the hands of the Eastern Celestial Dynasty. Although coke ironmaking has been around for two hundred years, it has only been passed down among master craftsmen with profound background. This is the first coking in the entire western hemisphere!
“Even the coke is there, now the iron is missing!”
Shulot felt a little emotional for a moment, this is another seed he planted by himself, changing the whole era little by little. After a while, the king waved his hand, and Ezpan led two warriors to take out the formed coke and weigh it with a simple balance.
Ezpan quickly calculated the result, and the coking rate was about 40%. With the increase of coking experience, the coking rate will gradually increase, and the peak value of local coking should reach 60%.
“Well, the first coking, the coal quality in the mining area is very high!”
The king whispered to himself, and then waited patiently. Batch after batch of exploration groups returned from all over the place one after another, bringing mineral information about the mining area.
The Chingambat mining area is located near a dormant volcano and contains large and rich mineral deposits. Among them, copper ore is the main one, estimated to be over 10 million tons. Then there is the associated gold and silver mine, which is relatively deep and difficult to smelt, so it is not worth mining at present. Then, the amount of sulfur in the volcanic area is unknown, but it must be enough for use, and was once secretly controlled by the priests.
Surprisingly, a miner offered a piece of lead-zinc ore familiar to the Alliance. According to the geological characteristics of this place, the lead ore should also contain silver.
“Well, separation of lead and silver, ash blowing method.”
Not knowing what to think of, a smile appeared on Shulot’s face. He chuckled and shook his head, then asked about the distribution of the most important coal mines.
Within a 20-mile radius of the mining area, a total of five small coal mines with a level of one million tons were discovered. According to the miners, there are still several “demon stones” stored underground. It is estimated that the total reserves must be above 20 million tons, mainly bituminous coal and lignite.
According to the standards of future generations, the reserves of coal mines here are very small, and their value is far from being comparable to that of gold and silver mines. The Qinganbat mining area in later generations was monopolized by mining groups. Although the Mexican government discovered coal mines, it was judged to be unworthy of mining, and only non-governmental teams dug secretly.
But in this era, in Xiulot’s view, such reserves are enough.
“Qinganbat mining area, copper mine, gold and silver mine, sulfur mine, coal mine, lead-zinc mine, Fengguo handicraft industry, gunpowder workshop, bronze workshop. The future industrial center of Fengguo should be located here, for the kingdom’s Conquer, continuously provide power!”
Shulot raised his head and looked at the distant sky, the plan in his heart was as vast as the sky. The eagle will fly high in time, and the plains in the east, the hills in the south, the mountains in the west, and the great lake in the north will all be under the king’s gaze!